Canada

Dog day

LAST year, conservatives in Canada thought they had come up with a winning plan to oust the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien. In an effort to unite the divided right, the Reform Party, strong in the western provinces, joined forces with sections of the Progressive Conservative Party in a new Canadian Alliance. They chose as their leader Stockwell Day, a fresh-faced and seemingly bright Albertan. But little has gone right for the Alliance—or for Mr Day.

The problems began at the Alliance's birth, when Joe Clark, the Conservative leader, refused to join. The second setback came when Mr Chrétien called a snap election in November, which he won with an increased majority. Since then, Mr Clark, who was once briefly prime minister, has shone in parliamentary skirmishing with Mr Chrétien over a shady golf-course deal, while Mr Day has stumbled as leader of the opposition. Discontent came to a head last month when his chief of staff and four members of his shadow cabinet resigned from their posts. Even Ralph Klein, Alberta's premier and Mr Day's former boss, has said that time is running out for the leader. On May 2nd, Mr Day presented his MPs with a draft strategy, drawn up by outside consultants, which seemed to contain the revolt—or at least to buy himself some more time.

Mr Day can claim that in the election he did well to add 700,000 votes and six more seats—making 66 in total—to Reform's haul in the 1997 election. His critics counter that he fumbled the campaign. He failed to work with the Conservative machine in Ontario, where he won only two of 103 seats, and he flip-flopped on big issues. Since then, he has attracted ridicule for landing Alberta's taxpayers with legal costs of C$700,000 ($460,000) for a libel case when he was a minister there. More trouble followed over whether he had agreed to hire an American detective to spy on the Liberals. His critics within the Alliance claim that he makes erratic decisions, and without consultation.

Support for the Alliance has crumbled to 13%, down from 25% on election day, and behind Mr Clark's Conservatives (15%), according to a recent opinion poll. More pointedly, the poll showed that Mr Clark was twice as popular as Mr Day in Alberta.

But the Alliance lacks an obvious replacement for Mr Day. Preston Manning, who led Reform, might welcome a recall, but in public says he plans to leave politics later this year. Mr Clark is too much of a centrist “Red Tory” to appeal to the social conservatives of the Alliance. Mike Harris is an obvious choice after six successful years as Ontario's premier. But he seems to enjoy his present job, not least since power in Canada is increasingly moving to provincial level.

Another problem is that the Alliance's MPs cannot by themselves remove their leader, since he was directly elected by party members. A vote on his leadership is not due until a party convention in 2002—unless Mr Day resigns. That looks unlikely. Last week, he commended Queen Elizabeth for saying that at 75 she had no plans for retirement, adding that, at 50, neither did he.